Yesterday I saw Rocky IV in theaters with my kids. Ironically, this was the same time it was announced that the Phillies were picking up the $9m option on Jose Alvarado. Why is it ironic? Because last year Alvarado was suspended for PED use. Just like Ivan Drago (and Sly, you aren’t fooling anybody) adding to his villainy by being juiced up during training, this matters.
Alvarado was a revelation back in 2022 and 2023. After coming over in a trade with Tampa and LA back in 2020, he became one of the Phillis most trusted bullpen arms thanks to his ridiculous fastball. He throws a sinker than averaged 99 and could get up to 102 when he got here. It started to slip in 2023 though, going from 99.6 to 98.7. By 2024, it was down to 97.8 and his ERA was up to 4.09. While pitchers can get craftier as they get older, velocity is not exactly something that improves with age.
In 2025, Alvarado hit Spring Training with his 2022 fastball. All of a sudden, he was the lights out closer we thought we were missing. With a 102 mph fastball again, the questionable bullpen had a rock in its back end. Through his first 20 appearances, Alvarado had a 2.70 ERA and a 1.89 FIP showing he was subject to some bad luck. His pitching was on point, striking out 25, walking 4, and giving up only 1 HR. Unfortunately, on May 18th he was busted for PED use, claiming he did not knowingly take any supplements but accepted his 80-game ban. When he returned, he was not the same pitcher. His ERA was 7.50 and his FIP was even higher. Strikeouts were down, walks were up, and he gave up 3 HRs.
What are we getting this year? Probably the same reliever we had in 2024. Maybe a lefty specialist, but nothing more. Without the 100+ mph gas, he is not a special pitcher, he’s proven that. We are going to pay $9m to know it now too. Considering the Phillies likely have a decently hard budget at $304m, this is not nothing.
Many were expecting this move with the reason being that you don’t find pitchers with that kind of velocity for that price. The problem with that is that Alvarado does NOT have that kind of velocity. 97-98 for a reliever who relies on serious movement like Alvarado is completely different than 102. With the lost velocity there is lost movement and all of a sudden the whole arsenal doesn’t play. Alvarado at $5m makes sense, but not at $9m. Would he have received more on the open market? Maybe, but that would be someone else’s mistake.
I don’t hate Jose Alvarado. He seems like a genuinely fun person who is addicted to coffee and that’s something I can get behind. I can’t seem to shake not liking him though and it’s probably a personal thing. When he came into spring throwing 102 again, we should have known. Something like that doesn’t just happen and yet, we all ignored it. We wanted to believe that we had a great reliever again because we needed a great reliever. Then when he was busted, not speaking for all of us, I felt stupid and lied to. Because of the lie, the Phillies were in a lurch too. Granted, this led to Jhoan Duran becoming a Phillie, but still. I’m just not ready to welcome him back.
Who knows though, if I can change, and Alvarado can change…
Velocity numbers from Baseball Savant.
Posts
Welcome to a world of limitless possibilities, where the journey is as exhilarating as the destination, and where every moment is an opportunity to make your mark.
-
As of publication, Major League Baseball still has an odd system in place to try to dissuade high spending teams from buying up all the free agents while compensating teams for losing their star players. This system starts with the Qualifying Offer and may have a decent sized impact on the Phillies this season. Let’s…
-
UPDATE: Kevin Long and Bobby Dickerson will not be back so no aneurysm I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football only for Lucy to pull it away. I actually thought the Phillies were going to try to change this offseason. That’s on me for AGAIN falling for the “Big Changes” that need…
-
There’s a lot of negativity surrounding the Phillies at the moment (especially from me), so I figured I would take everyone on a drive through some of the team’s better and more fun memories. As you can imagine, over the last 140+ years, this team has done some pretty cool things. Here’s a look at…
-
The 2026 Phillies are no more. I can’t say it was very fun other than in maybe August. The team was either shooting itself in the foot with dumb mistakes or trying to dig itself out from a whole. The roster never seemed right either. We were always down a bat, a starter, and a…
-
“I got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re gonna hear about it!” – Frank Costanza I am usually pretty optimistic in my fanhood, believing that there’s always a chance. Those hopes have been stretched to the thinnest of threads right now with this Phillies team. We probably need to win two…
-
UPDATED AFTER 9/23 …or close the wall up with our Philadelphia dead. There is just one more week left in the Phillies regular season. The Magic Number is 2 with the Arizona Diamondbacks 3 games back with 4 games to play and no tiebreak to fall back on. Of course, the Chicago Cubs and San…
-
To say Phillies All-Star left fielder Brandon Marsh has been struggling as of late is an understatement. His second half stats were making their rounds this week and they are miserable: .182 average, .483 OPS, and only 6 extra base hits. This was after a .301 average, .829 OPS, and 32 XBHs in the first…
-
Through the slog of a 162-game baseball season, teams, especially our Phillies, drive fans slowly insane. With ten games left, our nerves are all now completely shot. I am not just talking about the people who are saying they don’t want the team to make the postseason either. That’s right, all you people yelling at…
-
The Braves are one of the more interesting teams out there when it comes to free agency. In fact, the success of free agency in a way comes back to them and Ted Turner when they signed the very first officially sanctioned free agent ever with Andy Messersmith‘s 3/$1m contract back in 1975. Since then?…
-
Going into the 1975 MLB season, baseball realized it was on the cusp of scoring run number 1,000,000. Now whether that was true or not isn’t officially known because records weren’t exactly kept too well in the late 1800s, but considering baseball would score 1,000,000 runs at some point, why not turn it into a…
-
This week Bryce Harper gave a hint that Dancing On My Own might be coming back to the Phillies clubhouse. The anthem of the 2022 and 2023 playoff runs has been absent for the trying-to-be-more-professional Phillies, but whatever works with them is fine with me. The reason I bring it up is that my own…
-
Ted Turner was wild. He was known to spend lavishly, act crazy, and basically do whatever he wanted. Why? Because he could. To many, he was an asshole. To more still, he was a genius. Well, he was also the owner of the Atlanta Braves and in the late 70s, all of these personality traits…
Leave a Reply